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Ed Gein
Warning! Some of them can be nasty that you shouldn't hear or see. If you know what it means, good. If not, you don't want to know and don't show this to your little sister or brother. Because it's bad for them to know what it is. Edward Theodore "Ed" Gein (August 27, 1906 – July 26, 1984) was an American murderer and body snatcher. His crimes, committed around his hometown of Plainfield, Wisconsin, gathered widespread notoriety after authorities discovered Gein had exhumed corpses from local graveyards and fashioned trophies and keepsakes from their bones and skin. Gein confessed to killing two women—- tavern owner Mary Hogan during 1954, and a Plainfield hardware store owner, Bernice Worden, during 1957. Initially found unfit for trial, after confinement in a mental health facility he was tried during 1968 for the murder of Worden and sentenced to life imprisonment, which he spent in a mental hospital. The body of Bernice Worden was found in Gein's shed; her head and the head of Mary Hogan were found inside his house. Robert H. Gollmar, the judge for the Gein case, wrote: "Due to prohibitive costs, Gein was tried for only one murder—- that of Mrs. Worden." With fewer than three murders attributed to Gein, he's not a serial killer by the traditional definition. His case influenced the creation of several fictional serial killers, including Norman Bates of the novel Psycho, Leatherface of the movie The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Jame Gumb of the novel The Silence of the Lambs. Biography Edward Theodoren Gein was born in La Crosse County, Wisconsin on August 27, 1906. His parents were George Philip Gein (1873–1940) and Augusta Wilhelmine (Lehrke) Gein (1878–1945), both natives of Wisconsin; Augusta's parents were both Prussian immigrants. George and Augusta had two sons: Henry George Gein (1901–1944), and his younger brother, Edward Theodore Gein. Augusta apparently despised her husband, but the marriage persisted because of the family's religious belief against divorce. Augusta Gein operated a small grocery store and eventually purchased a farm on the outskirts of the small town of Plainfield, Wisconsin, which then became the Gein family's permanent home. Augusta Gein relocated to the farm to prevent outsiders from influencing her sons. Edward Gein left the premises only to attend school. Besides school, he spent most of his time doing chores on the farm. Augusta Gein preached to her boys the innate immorality of the world, the evil of drinking, and the belief that all women (herself excluded) were naturally prostitutes and instruments of the devil. She reserved time every afternoon to read to them from the Bible, usually selecting graphic verses from the Old Testament concerning death, murder and divine retribution. The younger Gein was shy, and classmates and teachers remembered him as having strange mannerisms, such as seemingly random laughter, as if he were laughing at his own personal jokes; he was sometimes bullied. To make matters worse, his mother punished him whenever he tried to make friends. Despite his poor social development, he did fairly well in school, particularly in reading. Gein seemed willing to make his mother happy, but she rarely acted pleased with her boys; she often abused them, believing that they were destined to become failures like their father, who had become an alcoholic. During their teens and early adulthood, the boys remained detached from people outside of their farmstead, and so had only each other for company. Deaths in Gein's Immediate Family After George Gein died of heart failure during 1940, the Gein brothers began doing odd jobs to help with expenses. Both brothers were considered reliable and honest by residents of the community. While both worked as handymen, Ed Gein also frequently babysat for neighbors. He enjoyed babysitting, seeming to relate more easily to children than adults. As Henry Gein matured, he began to reject his mother's beliefs about humanity and worried about his brother's affection for her. He spoke ill of her around his brother, who responded with shock and hurt. On May 16, 1944 Henry Gein decided to burn away marsh vegetation on the property. The burning got out of control and the local fire department was called to extinguish the fire and protect the family farm. At day's end, with the fire controlled, the firemen returned to their homes, at which time it was discovered that Henry was missing. A search party, with lanterns and flashlights, searched the burned area and during the evening, several hours after the search began, found the dead body of Henry Gein lying face down. Apparently the man had been dead for some time when found, and it appeared that death was result of heart failure, since he had not been burned or injured otherwise. It was later reported, in Harold Schechter biography of Gein, Deviant, that Henry had bruises on his head. The police dismissed the possibility of foul play and the county coroner later officially listed asphyxiation as the cause of death. Although, some investigators suspected that Ed Gein killed his brother, no charges were filed against him. The authorities accepted the accident theory and an autopsy was not performed. After his brother's death, Gein lived alone with his mother, who died on December 29, 1945, following a series of strokes. Gein was apparently devastated by her death; in the words of author Harold Schechter, he had "lost his only friend and one true love. And he was absolutely alone in the world." Gein remained on the farm, earning money from odd jobs. He boarded up rooms used by his mother, including the upstairs, downstairs parlor, and living room, leaving them untouched; while the rest of the house became increasingly squalid, these rooms remained pristine. Gein lived thereafter in a small room next to the kitchen. It was around this time that he became interested in reading death-cult magazines and adventure stories, particularly those involving cannibals or Nazi atrocities. Crimes On November 16, 1957, Plainfield hardware store owner Bernice Worden disappeared, and police had reason to suspect Gein. Worden's son told investigators that Gein had been in the store the evening before the disappearance, saying he would return the next morning for a gallon of anti-freeze. A sales slip for a gallon of anti-freeze was the last receipt written by Worden on the morning she disappeared. Upon searching Gein's property, investigators discovered Worden's decapitated body in a shed, hung upside down by ropes at her wrists, with a crossbar at her ankles. The torso was "dressed out like a deer". She had been shot with a .22-caliber rifle, and the mutilations were made after her death. Searching the house, authorities found: *Four noses *Whole human bones and fragments *Nine masks of human skin *Bowls made from human skulls. *Ten female heads with the tops sawn off. *Human skin covering several chair seats. *Mary Hogan's head in a paper bag *Bernice Worden's head in a burlap sack. *Skulls on his bedposts. *A pair of lips on a draw string for a window-shade. *A lampshade made from the skin from a human face. These artifacts were photographed at a crime laboratory and were then destroyed. When questioned, Gein told investigators that between 1947 and 1952, he made as many as 40 nocturnal visits to three local graveyards to exhume recently buried bodies while he was in a "daze-like" state. On about 30 of those visits, he said he came out of the daze while in the cemetery, left the grave in good order, and returned home empty handed. On the other occasions, he dug up the graves of recently buried middle-aged women he thought resembled his mother and took the bodies home, where he tanned their skins to make his paraphernalia. Gein admitted robbing nine graves, leading investigators to their locations. Because authorities were uncertain as to whether the slight Gein was capable of single-handedly digging up a grave during a single evening, they exhumed two of the graves and found them empty (one had a crowbar where the body should have been), thus apparently corroborating Gein's confession. Allan Wilimovsky of the state crime laboratory participated with opening three test graves identified by Gein. The caskets were inside wooden boxes; the top boards ran crossways (not lengthwise). The tops of the boxes were about two feet below the surface in sandy soil. Gein had robbed the graves soon after the funerals when the graves were not completed. They were found as Gein described: one casket was empty, one Gein had failed to open when he lost his pry bar, and most of the body was gone from the third but Gein had returned rings and some body parts. Soon after his mother's death, Gein decided he wanted a sex change and began to create a "woman suit" so he could pretend to be female. Gein's practice of donning the tanned skins of women was described as an "insane transvestite ritual". Gein denied having sex with the bodies he exhumed, explaining: "They smelled too bad." During state crime laboratory interrogation, Gein also admitted to the shooting death of Mary Hogan, a tavern owner missing since 1954 whose head was found in his house, but later denied memory of details of her death. A 16-year-old youth, whose parents were friends of Gein and who attended ball games and movies with him, reported that Gein kept shrunken heads in his house, which Gein had described as relics from the Philippines, sent by a cousin who had served on the islands during World War II. Upon investigation by the police, these were determined to be human facial skins, carefully peeled from corpses and used by Gein as masks. Waushara County sheriff Art Schley reportedly assaulted Gein during questioning by banging Gein's head and face into a brick wall; as a result, Gein's initial confession was ruled inadmissible. Schley died of heart failure during 1968, at age 43, before Gein's trial. Many who knew him said he was traumatized by the horror of Gein's crimes and that this, along with the fear of having to testify (especially about assaulting Gein), caused his death. One of his friends said: "He was a victim of Ed Gein as surely as if he had butchered him." Trial On November 21, 1957, Gein was arraigned on one count of first degree murder in Waushara County Court, where he pled not guilty by reason of insanity. Found mentally incompetent and thus unfit for trial, Gein was sent to the Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane (now the Dodge Correctional Institution), a maximum-security facility in Waupun, Wisconsin, and later transferred to the Mendota State Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin. During 1968, Gein's doctors determined he was sane enough to stand trial. The trial began on November 14, 1968, lasting one week. He was found guilty of first-degree murder by Judge Robert H. Gollmar, but because he was found to be legally insane, he spent the rest of his life in a mental hospital. Gein's house and property were scheduled to be auctioned March 30, 1958, amid rumors the house was to become a tourist attraction. On March 27, the house was destroyed by fire. Arson was suspected, but the cause of the blaze was never solved officially. When Gein learned of the incident while in detention, he shrugged and said, "Just as well". Gein's car, which he used to haul the bodies of his victims, was sold at public auction for $760 to carnival sideshow operator Bunny Gibbons. Gibbons later charged carnival goers 25¢ admission to see it. Death On July 26, 1984, Gein died of respiratory failure at the age of 77 in Stovall Hall at the Mendota Mental Health Institute. His grave site in the Plainfield Cemetery was frequently vandalized over the years; souvenir seekers chipped off pieces of his gravestone before the bulk of it was stolen during 2000. The gravestone was recovered during June 2001 near Seattle and is now in a museum in Waushara County. Popular culture The story of Ed Gein has had a lasting effect on Western popular culture as evidenced by its numerous appearances in movies, music and literature. Gein's story was adapted into a number of movies, including Deranged (1974), In the Light of the Moon (2000) released in the U.S. as Ed Gein (2001), and Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield (2007). Gein served as a model for several book and movie characters, most notably such fictional serial killers as Norman Bates (Psycho), Leatherface (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), Jame Gumb (The Silence of the Lambs), and Bloody Face ("American Horror Story: Asylum").